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The Badminton Court: Feedback 

Just taking a little breather here from PapaTango Theatre Company's absolutely stunning 
production of  LEOPOLDVILLE now playing at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London - 
to mention my short story, The Badminton Court. This story featured recently in 
The Frogmore Papers, a marvellous little journal edited by Jeremy Page. 
It's always nice to get feedback for ones work - and in the middle of all the theatre work 
I've been doing of late,  it was most refreshing to be reminded of one's prose, too.
Poet, Alex Smith, wrote to editors of the journal to comment on my story. Smith very
astutely identified the source of the material as being a painting by David Inshaw
called 'The Badminton Game'. Smith writes:
 
'Right; now I wish to come to Jaki McCarrick's short story The Badminton 
Court. I was totally knocked for six by this story. It is an incredible 
piece of writing, and if you're in touch with Jaki McCarrick, please tell 
her that she has a new fan. The spare, sinewy sentences had me going over 
and over them; and such economy of writing! I must, simply must see more of 
her work. You are aware of who the character Inshaw is, presumably? He is 
an artist (born 1943) who was a founder member of the Brotherhood of 
Ruralists. He painted an astonishing, dreamlike, semi-surrealist painting 
called 'The Badminton Game' (please ignore all this if you know it 
already). McCarrick's story invokes the painting without specifically 
mentioning it, even down to the long maroon garments worn by the two female 
players ((Miranda and the writer?). The house in the picture is strange as 
well; there are no windows in the lower story. Trees and hedges are 
enormous so that the picture is densely claustrophobic. If, by chance, 
you're not familiar with the painting, then it's quite easy to find on 
Google, but I daresay you know it anyway.'







































Comments









  1. Rachel FentonApril 17, 2010 at 12:34 AM
    I hope one day to get a review like that - wonderful!
    ReplyDelete
  2. JAKI MCCARRICKApril 17, 2010 at 3:06 AM
    Thanks so much Rachel. Well, I think sometimes the good reviews just come out of the blue. Do your best work all the time - and someday someone will pick it up. There's a very weird karma at work in all art-making, I think. Sometimes you get the rewards in the strangest way, usually when you're not looking, or expecting them of course.
    ReplyDelete











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